Now *that's* a weekend!

On Friday, we started painting Tina's bathroom. This particular endeavour lasted until this evening. What, it's not evening yet? Damn! *shakes fist*

Imagine a lemon marangue pie. You know the yellow contrasted with the white top? Put it on a hardwood floor and make it a semi-gloss, and you have the colour scheme of the bathroom.

The most amusing side-effect of this, of course, were the fireflies.

While painting, we had the lights on and the window open. Well, Sunday night, with the room enjoying its first coat of yellow, we came in to check on the progress of drying to find the room filled with fireflies, all over the walls.

Apparently, they had found the mother ship, and they were going home.

While Tina was trying to figure out how to get rid of them, I was trying to figure out how they got in. It seems that there was a small (very small) gap between the window and the screen when the window was open. Somehow, the firelfies, in their desire to get "on board" had wandered through this simple maze and into the bathroom.

Tina was still working out how to get rid of them. We couldn't smash them (we were between coats of paint and the paint wasn't totally dry, though it was dry enough that the bugs weren't getting stuck), and we couldn't just vacuum them up (I've always found that to be cruel, myself, and didn't want a vacuum that would glow a nuclear reactor that's melting down).

So it was "catch and release".

Now, keep in mind that the room is small (there's about 70' feet of wall to be painted in that room), and the drop cloth and walls are covered in paint that is *just* damp enough to rub off on clothes and feet. So I'm bouncing around the room in boxers, from tub ledge to stepstool to toilet lid, reaching for lightning bugs and taking them to the window.

Ah, the window. Yet another problem.

Each time I open the window, another lightning bug floats in on the warm air currents. This place really *is* the mother ship!

I haven't made an earnest attempt at catching these things for years, and I have to say, my skills have suffered from lack of practice. Sure, I chase the occasional lightning bug, but only when they're close enough that I don't have to do any *real* chasing. It is pointless to describe by fruitless first ten minutes of jumping and twisting, but suffice to say that it's like riding a bike: you don't really forget, but you scrape your knees when you get back on that first time.

Finally, I got it down, and released about 30 or 40 back into the wild. They had this strange habit of flashing quite animatedly at the walls when I would make a grab and miss, as if they were trying to turn their mother ship on and blast for home. It was really quite amusing.

During the day on Sunday, I had planned to make it to perlgirlju's party where stuff was to be blown up. This did not happen, though when I talked to romandruid in the middle of painting, I had indicated I would probably go. The issue? I passed out on the couch at around 2:30 and woke up around 6:30, just in time to put that first coat of paint on the walls. Leaving really wasn't an option at that point, and without an "end" time on the event, I wasn't even sure I'd manage to make it down there before it ended.

I got a call around 8:30 from singingwren, who was interested in watching a movie. At this point, I was getting tired of watching paint dry, and so took her up on the offer. She swung by around 10, and we hung out on the couch watching Le Pacte des Loups, aka Brotherhood of the Wolf. We sat and talked and I was fortunate enough to have my shoulder used as a hiding place when the scenes got too gruesome. I can't even remember the last time that happened.

On the Fourth of July, I was rather sick. Tina made me get up and go to the Doo-Dah parade anyway, and I'm glad she did. I've never managed to make it, and I can tell I've been missing a lot! Getting to see nipples was a bonus.

We went back and painted some more, then went out to fireworks in Whetstone park. It was quite nice, and I've always liked their fireworks. Now, though, they put them to music, which is just stupid and annoying. When watching fireworks put to music, I feel the same way I do about art: I just don't get it, and I'm not going to.

Well, at this point the whole weekend wrap-up is totally out of order. I like it that way. on Saturday, Tina and I went out with Brian to see Kung-Fu Hustle, which was quite the fun movie. More fun, though is that those two never have any idea how to act around each other, so it's always amusing to watch.

So now it's off to write an email that is likely to disappoint a couple of people, but it can't be helped today.